Day: February 26, 2012

We’re mostly heading south for this weeks non-league videos of the week, and specifically to the Blue Square Bet South. Woking have opened up a gap at the top of the table, but their trip to a Hampton & Richmond side struggling to avoid relegation still looked like a tricky match, while elsewhere Farnborough FC were at home against Tonbridge Angels and Dover Athletic were at home against Welling United. Finally, we have a trip to the North West Counties League, where top of the table Bootle played Ramsbottom United, who are two points behind them in third place in the table, but with two games in hand. Our thanks go to all of those that take the time to record, edit and upload these matches. You can follow Twohundredpercent on Twitter by clicking...

It has been sixteen years since Liverpool Football Club last appeared at Wembley Stadium. Much has changed in that intervening decade and a half, not least of which is the fact that the stadium itself has been knocked down and replaced by the monument to modern football which continues to justify its existence through the medium of playing as many games there as physically possible. Today, though, the cards were stacked against Liverpool. The first piece of bad news came with the news that a derailed train was blacking those travelling to London from Merseyside. Virgin Trains, perhaps with a sense of irony too subtle for most of us to be able to fully take in, suggested that people drive to Stafford or Crewe to get trains from there instead. Yet if that felt cruel, we might perhaps take a moment to consider Cardiff City’s day, a day which took in every emotion from joy to despair, from frustration to hope, and back again. The biggest surprise of the pre-match build-up was the decision of Kenny Dalglish to not start Craig Bellamy this afternoon. Bellamy, whose second half introduction reignited Liverpool’s afternoon at the exact point at which it had started to feel as if this grand day out was starting to slip away from Liverpool, was perhaps the man around whose neck the narrative of this match was...

Ah, the local derby. That one time in the year when we are permitted to drop many of the vestiges of being civilised people and devolve back to our cave-dwelling, territorial roots. It’s a day for eyes to twitch, the rational to become irrational, for the stories of injustices of days gone by to be reheated and passed on to new generations. Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur have lived alongside each other for as long as the game has flourished in London and, while neither side is likely to win the Premier League this season, tensions at The Emirates Stadium are as high as ever. For once, it is Spurs that go into this match in the ascendency. Although they have been less than impressive away from White Hart Lane over the last couple of months, they remain comfortable in third place in the table, while Arsenal remain an increasingly distant spot on the horizon, with recent defeats in the FA Cup and Champions League having all but ended any chances of ending their recent mini-drought of trophy wins in recent years. While Harry Redknapp is being talked up as the next England manager, Arsene Wenger is under the sort of pressure that frequently results in a manager’s departure from a club. It has been a topsy-turvy sort of season in that respect. If the nerves of Arsenal supporters are...